Nymph and Dragon
07-26-06, 11:36 PM
. . . Birth of a Nymph!
Name: Twyla
Age:Unknown
Race:Freshwater Nymph
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Turquoise
Height: 5.8
Weight: 125
Occupation: Presentorian (Documents current events so that history is written as it happens, so future generations will have the accounts and won't need to wonder about their ancestors.)
Personality: Twyla has the signature "alluring" look of her race that often gets her into trouble. Like a mermaid she exudes an air that calls attention to her, despite the fact that her mind is focused on her work and not interested in the romantic aspects of relationships. She loves to talk, if only to get information, and is obsessively curious about the lives of humans; for documentary purposes, of course. Her Elemental (see History and Familiar) purged her of the hatred for humans that had driven her to cause so many of their deaths.
Appearance: Taller than most of her water-bound sisters, Twyla nonetheless has a gracefully athletic figure, her muscles honed from her frequent- and required- swims. If one looks at her closely, he would notice that both her her skin and her hair had a greenish hue, another characteristic of her water-bound race. Her blond hair is long, full, and usually untied. The nymph's face as a whole has a childlike innocence, but at the same time it is hauntingly beautiful. She has very large eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a small mouth that is usual pulled into a reserved smile. Her one blemish is a thin scar that extends from her right ear to just below the right side of her mouth, but it is well-healed and only visible from a very close proximity, while her gorgeousness is easily discernable from quite a ways away. She is not shy of her beauty, since all of her sisters share similar features, but she gets annoyed when her work is hindered by men's obsession with her looks.
Dress: She dresses in layers of long robes, usually in a color that matches her eyes, which vary in their shade of blue and green according to her mood. The nymph usually wears some sort of scarf or hood to hide her face, or she brushes her hair to shroud her features so that men won't be pulled under her Allure while she's trying to interview them. Accustomed to being naked, the nymph has almost no sense of modesty and only wears the robes to protect herself from the prying eyes of men. She hates the feel of clothes, however, and in her free time can be caught wearing sheer gowns and short dresses. She always wears thin-strap sandals. A small silver medallion hangs from her neck, but it is usually hidden beneath her gown.
History: A member of a race of immortal women whose celestial beauty was used to bring about the destruction of countless men and ships, Twyla was once one of the most renowned Sirens on earth. She was known throughout the realms of human-hating creatures as "the Scourge," her immeasurable beauty and irresistable voice the doom of many a hapless crew. She and her sisters would lounge on rocks hidden by high tide and choppy waves, crooning their summons across the water at ships that sailed by, luring them to crash and then drowning any who survived the collision. Life for the Siren might have continued in this way indefinitely, if not for an unexpected mistake that changed her life forever.
A large, heavily-laden merchant ship had been drawn by the Siren's call to crash on a reef near the shores of a scarcely island and was rapidly sinking, its load of iron ore from the Windlancer Moutain Range acting like a anchor to pull the ship to the ocean floor. Due to her prominent place among her kin, Twyla was given the honor of choosing who among the survivors she wanted to drown. She chose a young man who floundered in the water like a drowning kitten, a large bag clutched tightly in his arms. She swam out to meet him, making sure that he saw her lithe form as she approached, her eyes burning with the joy of the power that she had over men. She drew near, laughing with demented joy as she reached out her hands to push his head beneath the foaming waves. But the young magician, for that was what the man truly was, had a surprise for the Siren. He pulled an iron dagger from an external pocket on his bag and slashed it at the woman's neck. Being a magician and not a warrior, he missed, and only scored a slit across her fair cheek. The iron, however, had a deadly effect on the Siren, as it is wont to do when used against one of the Fae. Twyla uttered a single scream of shocked pain and then sank under the water. Being a water-bound creature, the unconscious Siren would merely have rested on the ocean floor until the iron poisoning had spread through her body and killed her. But the magician, having a noble and genteel spirit, assumed that to leave the beautiful woman would mean to let her drown, so he used his magic to lift her out of the water, carrying her after him as he swam to the island.(He did not use a similar levitation spell on himself because his sack contained magical devices, which might have been negatively affected by the external magic.) The other Sirens, simple of mind and seeing their beloved sister floating limply through the air after the bobbing head of a human, were filled with fear of the magician and left him alone.
Once on the island, the magician looked closely at the unconscious Siren, a mistake, as any wise person could tell you. He immediately succumbed to the alluring nature of the Siren race and fell into deep, hopeless love. He saw that the wound he had given her was turning a sickly black, and spreading in thin tendrils across her mezmerizing face. He realized that she was dying, and, being untrained in the arts of healing, summoned a demon to help. The demon, whose name was Ty'Alken and who, incidently, hated the Sirens for taking up residence in oceans that she considered to be hers, agreed to save the Siren's life only if the magician promised to return the favor at a later point in time. So overwhelmed was the magician by his love that he agreed, forgetting all of the basic rules he had been taught in the matter of Dealing with Demons. Ty'Alken was a tricksy sort of demon, as they are inclined to be, and "saved" the Siren's life by binding her spirit to that of a Freshwater Elemental that he had captured a couple of millenia ago and that had been his favorite torture victim up til now. An instant after the binding was complete, he demanded repayment from the magician. His price: a thousand years of undead servitude to the villainous demon in place of the Elemental- starting now. The magician was transported instantly into the demon's realm to be killed and made undead, but the only thought that crossed the man's mind was the horrified realization that he had never even learned the name of his beloved.
Though the purity of the Elemental did drive the iron poisoning from the Siren's body, it also changed her very fundamental nature. When she awoke from her comatose state, she found that her inborn hatred of humanity was gone. The Elemental, whose form was a serpent-like dragon, had considered that hatred to be a vice and had driven it out with the rest of the poison. Aside from that, the Siren no longer was at home in the briny waters of the ocean. She couldn't breathe in the salty water and was uncomfortable if left in it for too long. The Elemental had purged the impurities from her body, changing her from a Saltwater Siren into a Freshwater Nymph (The major difference being the different types of tolerated water and the application of their allure ability). She still possessed her allure and come-hither beauty, but there is none of the innate hatred or malice that would use her gifts for evil.
Rejected by her sisters for her new companion and inability to fulfill their existance's purpose, Twyla was forced to seek out a source of freshwater. Her body, still marine-based, needed a nearly constant source of water to keep alive. Unfortunately, humans also needed those sources. Life was a struggle for the Siren-turned Nymph as she accustomed herself to her new and lonely life without the companionship of her sisters. The sentient Elemental was always near, but she scorned his company, hating him for what he had done to her body. But every male that she passed was instantly drawn to her innate allure, unable to resist her summoning beauty. The nymph took to wearing long cloaks with shadowy hoods to hide her face after being accosted countless times by men whose passions got the better of their honor. She searched long and hard for a refuge from the eternal pestering of men, and finally found such a place in a small monastary that was hidden from the rest of the world on a mountainside. It was ironic, that the only place the nymph was free from the crimes of lust was in a home for isolated men, but every one of the monks was blind. Unable to behold the nymph's beauty, they treated her as just another troubled woman who had come in search of peace, albeit a strange woman who was often found swimming in one of the many fountains and who was always accompanied by a strange, serpent-like animal that was barely the size of a garden snake. It was at this monastary that Twyla discovered the art of Mindwrite. The monks, unable to see the quills and paper required for scribing, had been blessed by the gods with a simple but powerful form of magic that enabled their thoughts to be transcribed on paper. This allowed the scribes to write down their stories and poetry, so that the works could be published and sent out to preserve the art of literacy among the commonfolk. Twyla immediately desired this gift. Her obsession with humans, though no longer wrought in malice and ill-will, remained a strong concern in her mind, and the nymph decided to help the monks as she could while satiating her curiosity. In return for the gift of Mindwrite, Twyla promised to venture across their world, seeking out the major events and recording them for the monks to edit, refine, and publish, that the history of their descendants would not be shrouded in mystery. The delighted monks agreed, and Twyla was given a medallion that allowed her thoughts to be recorded on parchments back in the monastary on the mountain.
With a heart full of hope and determination, Twyla now ventures out into the world, seeking to record the present for the sake of the future.
Skills:
Mindwrite: Silver medallion allows Twyla to record her thoughts on parchment by means of god-given magic. She can choose which thoughts are written and which stay in her mind.
Allure, : Merely the name of the inborn ability of Sirens to attract people to them with their looks. This is not really a skill because it's involuntary.
Siren's Call: Through the natural ability of her born race, the nymph's voice can be used to lure men- or anyone attracted to her- under her influence. Using her singing voice, which has a stronger attraction than Allure but whose effects last for a shorter time and require constant singing. (At level 0, she cannot control who is attracted to her, and she cannot put people fully under her control, but without distractions she is able to insert into their minds behavioral suggestions, that strong-willed characters (and anyone above level 1) can resist.)
Waterbreath: Twyla can breath underwater. (Only in freshwater.) Her water-based nature make her dependent upon water, however, so she has to swim or be submerged in freshwater at least once a day to stay healthy.
Summon Serpent: Not really a summon, since the Elemental is bound to her and cannot leave her side for long without damage to both their healths. It must, however, return to its realm daily to rejuvenate itself, and she is able to call it from that realm. (It takes, at level 0, about five minutes for him to come when called.)
Oceanic: Twyla can (at level 0) only understand the communication of most marine life. She cannot, however, be submerged in saltwater, so she is pretty much limited to the babbling of freshwater fish.
Equipment:
Silver medallion: A thin (also silver) chain holds a pendant that is a twisted tangle of silver strangs. It is about the size of a slightly-elongated (*gasp* non-Althanian allusion alert!) quarter. The nymph has to be touching the medallion with her fore- and middle fingers (of either hand) and focusing intently for her thoughts to be transcribed. Others, if they touch the medallion with the right fingers and think really hard, can transcribe onto the same parchment. However the "handwriting," that appears on the parchment, if it can be called that, is different.
*Familiars: The Freshwater Elemental. Nameless, telepathic, and roughly masculine, it is ageless and usually appears in the form of a bright green snake with four feet (kinda like Mushu from Mulan, but not so chipper). It has the ability to grow in size (at level 0, to about the height of a Shetland pony (4 ft. tall) and 10 ft long. )
After having lived a torturous existence as the personal slave of the demon Ty'Alken, the Elemental is grateful to Twyla for saving him from further misery, despite the fact that the nymph despises his company and scorns his help. He is eager to aid his mistress in any way possible and hates having to leave her for the brief time that it takes him to rejuvenate in his home realm every day. He has the power to purify things and can change his form from a solid green dragon (not fire-breathing) into a liquid that can be molded into any form (still bound by the size-restraints of his dragon form). As a solid he can attack with his teeth and claws. Rowr! As a liquid, he can change the density of his figure and is limited in variety of forms only by his and his mistress' imagination. He can, while in this world, leave Twyla's side, but only for, at the very most, an hour, but it weakens both of them. When one of the pair is injured the other knows it, feels it, and reacts to it. But while the Elemental can just go back to his realm to heal, Twyla must be healed by being submerged in water.
P.S. Where should I put mention of the Elemental in my profile? Under Items?
Name: Twyla
Age:Unknown
Race:Freshwater Nymph
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Turquoise
Height: 5.8
Weight: 125
Occupation: Presentorian (Documents current events so that history is written as it happens, so future generations will have the accounts and won't need to wonder about their ancestors.)
Personality: Twyla has the signature "alluring" look of her race that often gets her into trouble. Like a mermaid she exudes an air that calls attention to her, despite the fact that her mind is focused on her work and not interested in the romantic aspects of relationships. She loves to talk, if only to get information, and is obsessively curious about the lives of humans; for documentary purposes, of course. Her Elemental (see History and Familiar) purged her of the hatred for humans that had driven her to cause so many of their deaths.
Appearance: Taller than most of her water-bound sisters, Twyla nonetheless has a gracefully athletic figure, her muscles honed from her frequent- and required- swims. If one looks at her closely, he would notice that both her her skin and her hair had a greenish hue, another characteristic of her water-bound race. Her blond hair is long, full, and usually untied. The nymph's face as a whole has a childlike innocence, but at the same time it is hauntingly beautiful. She has very large eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a small mouth that is usual pulled into a reserved smile. Her one blemish is a thin scar that extends from her right ear to just below the right side of her mouth, but it is well-healed and only visible from a very close proximity, while her gorgeousness is easily discernable from quite a ways away. She is not shy of her beauty, since all of her sisters share similar features, but she gets annoyed when her work is hindered by men's obsession with her looks.
Dress: She dresses in layers of long robes, usually in a color that matches her eyes, which vary in their shade of blue and green according to her mood. The nymph usually wears some sort of scarf or hood to hide her face, or she brushes her hair to shroud her features so that men won't be pulled under her Allure while she's trying to interview them. Accustomed to being naked, the nymph has almost no sense of modesty and only wears the robes to protect herself from the prying eyes of men. She hates the feel of clothes, however, and in her free time can be caught wearing sheer gowns and short dresses. She always wears thin-strap sandals. A small silver medallion hangs from her neck, but it is usually hidden beneath her gown.
History: A member of a race of immortal women whose celestial beauty was used to bring about the destruction of countless men and ships, Twyla was once one of the most renowned Sirens on earth. She was known throughout the realms of human-hating creatures as "the Scourge," her immeasurable beauty and irresistable voice the doom of many a hapless crew. She and her sisters would lounge on rocks hidden by high tide and choppy waves, crooning their summons across the water at ships that sailed by, luring them to crash and then drowning any who survived the collision. Life for the Siren might have continued in this way indefinitely, if not for an unexpected mistake that changed her life forever.
A large, heavily-laden merchant ship had been drawn by the Siren's call to crash on a reef near the shores of a scarcely island and was rapidly sinking, its load of iron ore from the Windlancer Moutain Range acting like a anchor to pull the ship to the ocean floor. Due to her prominent place among her kin, Twyla was given the honor of choosing who among the survivors she wanted to drown. She chose a young man who floundered in the water like a drowning kitten, a large bag clutched tightly in his arms. She swam out to meet him, making sure that he saw her lithe form as she approached, her eyes burning with the joy of the power that she had over men. She drew near, laughing with demented joy as she reached out her hands to push his head beneath the foaming waves. But the young magician, for that was what the man truly was, had a surprise for the Siren. He pulled an iron dagger from an external pocket on his bag and slashed it at the woman's neck. Being a magician and not a warrior, he missed, and only scored a slit across her fair cheek. The iron, however, had a deadly effect on the Siren, as it is wont to do when used against one of the Fae. Twyla uttered a single scream of shocked pain and then sank under the water. Being a water-bound creature, the unconscious Siren would merely have rested on the ocean floor until the iron poisoning had spread through her body and killed her. But the magician, having a noble and genteel spirit, assumed that to leave the beautiful woman would mean to let her drown, so he used his magic to lift her out of the water, carrying her after him as he swam to the island.(He did not use a similar levitation spell on himself because his sack contained magical devices, which might have been negatively affected by the external magic.) The other Sirens, simple of mind and seeing their beloved sister floating limply through the air after the bobbing head of a human, were filled with fear of the magician and left him alone.
Once on the island, the magician looked closely at the unconscious Siren, a mistake, as any wise person could tell you. He immediately succumbed to the alluring nature of the Siren race and fell into deep, hopeless love. He saw that the wound he had given her was turning a sickly black, and spreading in thin tendrils across her mezmerizing face. He realized that she was dying, and, being untrained in the arts of healing, summoned a demon to help. The demon, whose name was Ty'Alken and who, incidently, hated the Sirens for taking up residence in oceans that she considered to be hers, agreed to save the Siren's life only if the magician promised to return the favor at a later point in time. So overwhelmed was the magician by his love that he agreed, forgetting all of the basic rules he had been taught in the matter of Dealing with Demons. Ty'Alken was a tricksy sort of demon, as they are inclined to be, and "saved" the Siren's life by binding her spirit to that of a Freshwater Elemental that he had captured a couple of millenia ago and that had been his favorite torture victim up til now. An instant after the binding was complete, he demanded repayment from the magician. His price: a thousand years of undead servitude to the villainous demon in place of the Elemental- starting now. The magician was transported instantly into the demon's realm to be killed and made undead, but the only thought that crossed the man's mind was the horrified realization that he had never even learned the name of his beloved.
Though the purity of the Elemental did drive the iron poisoning from the Siren's body, it also changed her very fundamental nature. When she awoke from her comatose state, she found that her inborn hatred of humanity was gone. The Elemental, whose form was a serpent-like dragon, had considered that hatred to be a vice and had driven it out with the rest of the poison. Aside from that, the Siren no longer was at home in the briny waters of the ocean. She couldn't breathe in the salty water and was uncomfortable if left in it for too long. The Elemental had purged the impurities from her body, changing her from a Saltwater Siren into a Freshwater Nymph (The major difference being the different types of tolerated water and the application of their allure ability). She still possessed her allure and come-hither beauty, but there is none of the innate hatred or malice that would use her gifts for evil.
Rejected by her sisters for her new companion and inability to fulfill their existance's purpose, Twyla was forced to seek out a source of freshwater. Her body, still marine-based, needed a nearly constant source of water to keep alive. Unfortunately, humans also needed those sources. Life was a struggle for the Siren-turned Nymph as she accustomed herself to her new and lonely life without the companionship of her sisters. The sentient Elemental was always near, but she scorned his company, hating him for what he had done to her body. But every male that she passed was instantly drawn to her innate allure, unable to resist her summoning beauty. The nymph took to wearing long cloaks with shadowy hoods to hide her face after being accosted countless times by men whose passions got the better of their honor. She searched long and hard for a refuge from the eternal pestering of men, and finally found such a place in a small monastary that was hidden from the rest of the world on a mountainside. It was ironic, that the only place the nymph was free from the crimes of lust was in a home for isolated men, but every one of the monks was blind. Unable to behold the nymph's beauty, they treated her as just another troubled woman who had come in search of peace, albeit a strange woman who was often found swimming in one of the many fountains and who was always accompanied by a strange, serpent-like animal that was barely the size of a garden snake. It was at this monastary that Twyla discovered the art of Mindwrite. The monks, unable to see the quills and paper required for scribing, had been blessed by the gods with a simple but powerful form of magic that enabled their thoughts to be transcribed on paper. This allowed the scribes to write down their stories and poetry, so that the works could be published and sent out to preserve the art of literacy among the commonfolk. Twyla immediately desired this gift. Her obsession with humans, though no longer wrought in malice and ill-will, remained a strong concern in her mind, and the nymph decided to help the monks as she could while satiating her curiosity. In return for the gift of Mindwrite, Twyla promised to venture across their world, seeking out the major events and recording them for the monks to edit, refine, and publish, that the history of their descendants would not be shrouded in mystery. The delighted monks agreed, and Twyla was given a medallion that allowed her thoughts to be recorded on parchments back in the monastary on the mountain.
With a heart full of hope and determination, Twyla now ventures out into the world, seeking to record the present for the sake of the future.
Skills:
Mindwrite: Silver medallion allows Twyla to record her thoughts on parchment by means of god-given magic. She can choose which thoughts are written and which stay in her mind.
Allure, : Merely the name of the inborn ability of Sirens to attract people to them with their looks. This is not really a skill because it's involuntary.
Siren's Call: Through the natural ability of her born race, the nymph's voice can be used to lure men- or anyone attracted to her- under her influence. Using her singing voice, which has a stronger attraction than Allure but whose effects last for a shorter time and require constant singing. (At level 0, she cannot control who is attracted to her, and she cannot put people fully under her control, but without distractions she is able to insert into their minds behavioral suggestions, that strong-willed characters (and anyone above level 1) can resist.)
Waterbreath: Twyla can breath underwater. (Only in freshwater.) Her water-based nature make her dependent upon water, however, so she has to swim or be submerged in freshwater at least once a day to stay healthy.
Summon Serpent: Not really a summon, since the Elemental is bound to her and cannot leave her side for long without damage to both their healths. It must, however, return to its realm daily to rejuvenate itself, and she is able to call it from that realm. (It takes, at level 0, about five minutes for him to come when called.)
Oceanic: Twyla can (at level 0) only understand the communication of most marine life. She cannot, however, be submerged in saltwater, so she is pretty much limited to the babbling of freshwater fish.
Equipment:
Silver medallion: A thin (also silver) chain holds a pendant that is a twisted tangle of silver strangs. It is about the size of a slightly-elongated (*gasp* non-Althanian allusion alert!) quarter. The nymph has to be touching the medallion with her fore- and middle fingers (of either hand) and focusing intently for her thoughts to be transcribed. Others, if they touch the medallion with the right fingers and think really hard, can transcribe onto the same parchment. However the "handwriting," that appears on the parchment, if it can be called that, is different.
*Familiars: The Freshwater Elemental. Nameless, telepathic, and roughly masculine, it is ageless and usually appears in the form of a bright green snake with four feet (kinda like Mushu from Mulan, but not so chipper). It has the ability to grow in size (at level 0, to about the height of a Shetland pony (4 ft. tall) and 10 ft long. )
After having lived a torturous existence as the personal slave of the demon Ty'Alken, the Elemental is grateful to Twyla for saving him from further misery, despite the fact that the nymph despises his company and scorns his help. He is eager to aid his mistress in any way possible and hates having to leave her for the brief time that it takes him to rejuvenate in his home realm every day. He has the power to purify things and can change his form from a solid green dragon (not fire-breathing) into a liquid that can be molded into any form (still bound by the size-restraints of his dragon form). As a solid he can attack with his teeth and claws. Rowr! As a liquid, he can change the density of his figure and is limited in variety of forms only by his and his mistress' imagination. He can, while in this world, leave Twyla's side, but only for, at the very most, an hour, but it weakens both of them. When one of the pair is injured the other knows it, feels it, and reacts to it. But while the Elemental can just go back to his realm to heal, Twyla must be healed by being submerged in water.
P.S. Where should I put mention of the Elemental in my profile? Under Items?